Category Archives: BBC funding and purpose

Wonder what you makes of the news that BBC will be forced to give up some of its £3.6 billion public funding in a massive shake-up of the licence fee, it was claimed today.

Technology minister Lord Carter is to propose “top slicing” the BBC’s budget by up to £130 million to help under-pressure ITV and other programme makers, the Sunday Telegraph said. His White Paper – to be presented to Cabinet on Tuesday – could also call for Channel 4 to receive financial support through a partnership with BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s lucrative commercial arm.

My thoughts are that this news is designed to give the appearance of doing something about the obscene license tax but in reality it perpetuates it. It’s not the top-slicing of it that matters much to me, it is the very existence of it.

Meanwhile, isn’t it nice to know that some of our favourite BBC star broadcasters are able to rake in a few extra pounds?

Sarah Montague, a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme, Radio 5 Live political reporter John Pienaar and Newsnight anchor Gavin Esler have received up to £5,000 to appear at the events for politicians, civil servants and NHS bosses

Ah yes – the NHS, the envy of the world (The third world, that is) .

Did you catch this debate on Today this morning concerning whether the BBC’s remit should be reduced over time to include only those programmes and services which the market would not provide? Former Sky TV executive, Martin le Jeune and the BBC’s director of strategy, John Tate, discussed what the corporation should be producing. I think that it is a very curious idea that the BBC should exist to produce programmes that no one would pay for, don’t you? Surely the BBC should be encouraged to produce programmes and services that people want – and then see if they sell them to us. That, of course, means the ending of that…ahem…”unique” means of funding.